Sixth-round rookie wide receiver Deon Cain “has been the big star” of Colts training camp according to Peter King of NBC Sports.

“Look for him early on to make a big impact,” was one of King’s main takeaways from Colts camp. The buzz surrounding Cain has been steadily growing ever since the Colts took him in the sixth-round out of Clemson this May and he wowed everyone during OTAs and minicamp.. The next step will be to see if Cain can translate his stardom in practice to actual game action this preseason. If he plays well during the exhibition season, he will likely start stealing snaps and targets from a wide receiver corps sorely lacking in star power outside of T.Y. Hilton. A lot of teams may end up deeply regretting that they passed on Deon Cain

Colts offensive guard Jack Mewhort has announced his retirement from the NFL after four seasons according to the team’s official website.

Originally a second-round draft pick out of Ohio State in 2014, Mewhort was one of the Colts’ best offensive linemen in 2015 and 2016 before injuries started taking their toll.

He has appeared in only 15 games the past two seasons as he struggled to come back from knee and triceps injuries. The Colts opted to bring Mewhort back on a one-year, $1.5 million contract this March but he was considered a longshot to win a starting job.

The Colts are expected to roll with an offensive line of LT Anthony Castonzo, LG Quenton Nelson, C Ryan Kelly, RG Matt Slauson, and RT Austin Howard this season. Mewhort does not turn 27 years old until August 30.

The Colts have a season starting in less than 100 days, and with a long training camp and season upcoming, there’s plenty of chatter as to what player might shine better than the rest as the teams Most Valuable Player.

An article out on NFL.com talks about just what player they think will be the MVP for not only the Colts, but for each team around the National Football League for 2018.

The Colts MVP – author Dan Hanzus is going with QB Andrew Luck, a player he thinks will have a big bounce back season after missing all of last year for the Colts.

Here’s what Hanzus has to say about Luck this season:

Put it this way: If Andrew Luck is not the Colts’ most valuable player this season, that means something has (once again) gone very wrong in Indianapolis. We choose to buy into all the optimism coming out of Colts Land and expect Luck to make a successful return from major shoulder surgery. The big question: Will Luck still have the old zip on the ball? If he doesn’t, he might have to change the way he approaches the game — a transition that could take time. Hopefully, we get the mad bomber version. That guy’s fun!

What do you think of this pick? Do you agree? Leave a comment if you disagree with what player you think will be the Colts 2018 MVP.

New Colts defensive end Chris McCain has been charged with two counts of battery stemming from an alleged incident involving a woman earlier this year, Mike Wells of ESPN reports.

McCain is accused of spitting on and grabbing the neck of Arpi Davtyan, according to the documents. The charges were filed last week, and the defensive end is scheduled to be arraigned on July 13.

“She is lying,” McCain told the Indianapolis Star.

McCain also said no investigators have contacted him about the matter. “No one has contacted me about anything,” he said. “No cops, no one. No one has talked to me.”

“We take these matters very seriously and we will provide updates as appropriate,” the Colts said in a statement.

The Chargers placed a right of first refusal on McCain, who was a restricted free agent, at the start of free agency in March.

The tender would have paid McCain a base salary of $1.9 million for the 2018 season. However, the Chargers notified McCain of their intention to rescind the tender in April, making him an unrestricted free agent.

The Chargers would not divulge if an incident led them to rescind the tender offer. However, the team did say it had learned of an incident involving McCain before making its decision.

“We were aware of an alleged incident and alerted the league office at the time,” a Chargers spokesperson said.

“What I feel like it does is it forces them to study,” the first-year coordinator told reporters. “It forces them to study maybe a little bit more than they would on their own because they’re prideful guys that want to be right and they want to look good in front of their peers. That’s why they are in the positions that they are in. So I’ve done that for a little bit and I always felt like it has worked pretty well so I continued it here.”

In fact, the competition it fuels is one of the main reasons Sirianni does it — in addition to making sure the players are up to speed.

“It’s a normal grading scale. There is no curve,” he said. “It’s all about not only getting them to learn the offense, but also to compete with each other. The constant competition – they’re fighting for jobs so the constant competition amongst each other is just another way for them to compete also.”

The Colts have added some competition to their wide receiver corps by signing free agent Kasen Williams according to colts.com.

Undrafted out of the University of Washington, the 25-year-old has appeared in ten regular season games over three seasons in Seattle and Cleveland. He nabbed 9-of-18 targets for 84 yards in seven appearances for the Browns in 2017.

To make room for Williams on the roster, the Colts released wide receiver DeAndre Smelter. Originally a fifth-round pick out of Georgia Tech by the San Francisco 49ers in 2015, Smelter logged just 54 regular-season snaps over three seasons. He signed a reserve/future contract with the Colts in January.

The Colts are taking a painstakingly deliberate approach to Andrew Luck’s shoulder rehabilitation this offseason, but there’s reason for more optimism this summer than last, Chris Wesseling of NFL.com reports.

After speaking with team sources, NFL Network’s Charley Casserly reported on Friday’s edition of Rookie Camp Live that the Colts are “very confident” Luck will be ready for training camp in late July.

“There is no question in their mind that he will open training camp throwing the football,” Casserly added. “Right now, they’re being conservative. He’s throwing a weighted ball. That’s where they are right now, but he’s going to start training camp. They’re totally confident in that.”

Luck is healthy enough to participate in offseason practices, but he’s learned the importance of adhering to a strict schedule after missing the entire 2017 season due to the shoulder injury.

It’s been evident for some time, however, that the Colts are counting on the face of the franchise to be fully healthy and capable of withstanding the pounding once the season starts.

Sitting down with Around The NFL Podcast at the Annual League Meeting in late March, new coach Frank Reich was so confident that Luck would “ready to go” that he expressed hope the teams selecting ahead of Indianapolis would target quarterbacks with the first five picks in last month’s draft.

“You plan that he’s going to be there [for Week 1],” Reich said. “All the rehab is checking off all the boxes: Yep, we hit that stage. Stage one, stage two, stage three. It’s all been good. We’ll just have to keep progressing on down that road.”

There’s been plenty of buzz around the Colts since the NFL Draft nearly two weeks ago, as many think that the turnaround for the team will be swift, and not the long drawn out process that it’s taken for the team to start winning.

According to the article, the Colts have the third best shot to unseat the Titans for the Division title in 2018 – a feat that won’t come easy.

3. tie — Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans (4-12)

Yes, we’re entering cheat mode here — two last-placed teams for the price of one. We like the odds. Especially when we’re talking about teams that featured franchise quarterbacks who both missed more than half the season in 2017.

We’re coming up on 500 days since the last time Andrew Luck took the field for a game, and he’s still not throwing actual footballs, so it’s hard to really know where he stands. Plus, the Colts — despite adding some nice talent in the draft the past two years and being mostly competitive sans Luck last season — are very much mid-reboot. Straight up, winning the AFC South would be a stunning result for first-year head coach Frank Reich.

There’s more optimism in the short term, though, for the Texans. They were perceived contenders entering last season but mishandled Deshaun Watson prior to Week 1 before watching him go down for the season after a brilliant seven-game run. Assuming his knee is back to full strength, Watson rightfully deserves to be mentioned as one of the league’s great stars in bloom.

There weren’t too many teams that suffered more injury-wise than the Texans, who also lost J.J. Watt and Whitney Mercilus in a short span, and there’s more optimism now on both returning to form. If that happens, the front seven stands as one of the better units in the NFL, and the secondary at least looks improved on paper.

Can the Texans win the South? The emergent-power Jaguars might scoff at that idea after thoroughly dominating them twice last season, but you can’t eliminate the possibility of a heroic Watson pulling out some Year 2 magic and the Houston defense bouncing back enough to give them a shot.